So i picked up an Epson 3490 off Craigslist for peanuts. Between last night and this morning ive fiddled around for about 4 hours and have nothing respectable to show for it.

I cant seem to match DPI to physical image size to file size to quality.

I was reading on a few sites and it seems that 3000dpi is a decent place to start. Well when i select 3000dpi it will not let me pick a target size other than original which leaves me with a tiny little pic. When lowering the DPI and upping the size, I get a larger picture but the quality isnt there.

48 bit or 24?

I played around with the dust removal and USM but to my eyes i dont see differences. The cheapo scans from Target arent looking too bad anymore.

Im not worried about all the dust showing up, i didnt clean off the negs and im not too worried, i can deal with that later, I would just like to get a scan that i can show on the web and maybe print, that comes at least close the the 4x6 prints I get from the 1hr lab.

Here is my best effort so far, turns out to be a 10mb file after resizing in PS. The original file was some god awfully large number, and the physical image size was something like 3x5. Hopefully its something stupid im just missing or maybe i dont understand the relationships between these things.

I use an Epson All-in-One Printer/Scanner thingy that works well. I can chose any scan resolution i wish and i think i use 3800dpi and i can chose the final output size. At first when i 'up' the DPI the software automatically trims the scan which would then only scan part of the image but there's a button to untick the trim which scans the whole lot. I usually keep all adjustments like Sharpen etc disabled and do them myself in PS.. seems to work best.

The Software is "EPSON Scan". Perhaps you can download it and see if it's compatible with your scanner.. it may have a better interface than the one you're using?

Hmmm. I have the 4490. I scann all my negs at 2400 DPI and at 24 bit and in TIFF. The file sizes are around 20mb. I am generaly happy with how mine come out. I rarely use any of the corrections in Epson scan I do all of that in photo shop. My flickr has a bunch.